Shane: Hmmm, something about this photograph doesn't look right

We had an interesting discussion in the newsroom recently when we discovered that a press release sent to us for publication from a local organization was accompanied by a photograph that was fake.

The photograph took some happy, bubbly children and placed them onto a scene that was happening in Midland. But upon closer review, those children really weren't there. They were children from some other place and some other time that were electronically cut out and pasted into a local image.

This is easy to do if you are fairly skilled in software such as Adobe Photoshop. Photographers everywhere use Photoshop to adjust parameters such as contrast, brightness and color intensity to their pictures. They also can blow up and trim excess "dead space" around the edges of their pictures.

There are other things you can do with Photoshop. You can take your former boyfriend or girlfriend and give them two heads or turn them into a cyclops, depending on your latest opinion of them. That's how a lot of goofy images show up on the internet.

But good newspaper photographers all use the same golden rule: Do not adjust a photo in any way that will alter the content of the image that will be published in print or online. That includes stretching a photograph horizontally or vertically, because even that can make a subject appear fatter or thinner.

The problem with the photograph that was sent to us was that you had to look carefully to tell that these children were not in this photo. They were copied and pasted into the image. Heck, these kids were probably models from Orlando or Nashville or Denver. They have probably never seen the Tridge or toured Dow Gardens.

Newspapers and other media are using more and more images provided by the public. Nowadays, everyone has a camera in their pocket and almost anyone can catch a famous moment in time. Send us your photograph and we will consider using it.

That was the case when a black bear created a stir this week after it emerged in a Midland neighborhood. The best photos of the bear were taken by a resident of the neighborhood, who offered them to us to use. We were happy to receive the contribution because it helped tell our story.

Fake photographs have made international news recently. The Vatican admitted in March that it doctored the photograph of a letter from Pope Benedict XVI. Later that month, a fake photo of Parkland, Florida, shooting survivor Emma Gonzalez tearing up the Constitution circulated on social media.

While our experience with a local press announcement was less dramatic, it gave all of us at the Daily News a refresher course in how we need to be on guard and follow fair and strict guidelines when we produce the news. And, we need to look closer at every photo that comes our way.

Dave Shane is editor of the Midland Daily News. He can be reached at dshane@hearstnp.com.